Obama's shadow campaign in Iowa

By GLENN THRUSH

12/28/2011 12:47 PM EST

A Democratic operative in Iowa told me that she had been contacted no fewer than four times by Obama for America staffers trying to organize high turnout for the caucuses – yes, Obama is technically on the ballot, but it’s not exactly a make-or-break election day for Democrats.

Team Obama isn’t competing for turnout to rival the GOP field this time -- or even match Obama’s own showing four years ago -- but they would be happy to best the several thousand votes George W. Bush got there in 2004, campaign staffers say.

It turns out that Obama’s Chicago-based political operation views the caucuses as a serious organizing tool and dry run for next November — and sees the relative lack of GOP boots on the ground in Iowa as the basis for a they-don’t-care-about-Iowa campaign theme in the 2012 general election.

Mitt Romney “hasn’t been here much,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sue Dvorsky in a DNC conference call that covered the kitchen-sink array of anti-Romney attacks — especially his decision to “waltz” into the Hawkeye State after months of staying away.

Obama will fire up Democratic caucus goers via video link in Iowa next week and local Democrats will organize in every caucus precinct, she said.

Another motive for the mobilization: To push back against $4 million in pro-Romney, anti-Obama ads being run by the former Massachusetts governor and Romney-friendly Super PAC, Restore Our Future.

“A 4 million ad buy is going to get our attention,” Dvorsky added. “We’re going to push back against that – that’s our job.”

Since the launch of the reelection campaign in April, OFA Iowa staff and volunteers have been organizing neighborhood by neighborhood, and block by block talking to their friends, family and co-workers – holding over 1,200 trainings, planning sessions, house parties and phone banks, a campaign official tells POLITICO.

The campaign has opened eight offices in the state – in Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, Des Moines, Waterloo, Davenport, Iowa City, Dubuque and Council Bluffs – and made some 350,000 calls to supporters, and something like 4,000 face-to-face conversations with voters.

“Our organization never left the state of Iowa – Iowans have been involved in the President’s effort to establish accountability on Wall Street, provide affordable, accessible health care to Americans and pass legislation that begins to restore economic security for the middle class,” an Obama campaign official tells POLITICO. "We are using the caucuses as an organizing opportunity to build on what we have already established, asking our supporters to get their networks to commit to helping the President in 2012.”

The aide added: “According to news reports at the time President Bush had several thousand supporters turn out in '04. We do not expect anywhere near the turnout we had in ’08 for a non-competitive caucus, but the Bush [number] should serve as a more reasonable benchmark.”

Iowa, obviously, was the critical early primary state for Obama in 2008, the site of his most electrifying and politically significant win, with a record-breaking 239,000 Democrats turning out for the caucuses four years ago.